CHICAGO—With his team cradling a slender two-point lead, Andrew Wiggins gathered the ball in the low post, stepped away from the basket and calmly stroked a mid-range jumper.

Nothing but net.

Moments later, off a turnover, the future of Canadian basketball roared down the United Center court and delivered a thundering dunk.

A young man taking off and in full flight, like Vince Carter in his prime.

Game over.

With dozens of drooling NBA scouts and executives watching in a packed Windy City arena, Wiggins delivered a powerful and resounding message that he isn’t just a product of hype.

He’s the real deal.

Toronto Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri was one of those watching at courtside, and boy, did he leave town with lots to think about.

The long-limbed Wiggins, a freshman at the University of Kansas, was the featured attraction on a much-anticipated doubleheader night of college basketball.

It was the silky Wiggins’s second collegiate game, but really, it was his debut on the big stage in a game also televised nationally in Canada. Just think; that’s early exposure that’s never been granted a hockey player in the Great White North.

The Great Unveiling, as it were, for a player considered the future of Canadian basketball.

“It was fun, definitely nerve-wracking at times,” said Wiggins afterwards. “Once the ball tipped off, I was good.”

“The hype, it was big. I just tried to block it out,” he added.

Wiggins battled through foul trouble, scored 22 points and showed exciting flashes of the fluid athleticism the basketball world has been raving about as his Jayhawks beat the always prominent Duke Blue Devils 94-83.

“Times like this are good . . . times you remember,” said Wiggins.

But he wasn’t alone in putting on a show on the night.

In a season already dubbed “The Year of the Freshman,” Wiggins was joined by two other first-year collegians, both of whom may also be available to Ujiri and other NBA general managers next summer.

Chicago-born and raised Jabari Parker, playing for Duke University against Wiggins and Kansas, delivered a crowd-pleasing 27 points. Meanwhile, in the first game of the night, No. 1 Kentucky was beaten by a more exprienced Michigan State team, but 6-foot-9, 250-pound Kentucky freshman forward Julius Randle put on a dominant show of power basketball.

Held in check for much of the first half, Randle ended with with a 27-point, 13 rebound performance.

So if you’re Ujiri in your first season of running the sad-sack Raptors, you’d love to get your hands on all the three.

No chance of that. But how much is Ujiri willing to do — or how many games is he willing to lose? — to make sure he gets one of Wiggins, Parker or Randle in next summer’s draft?

Tough decision, complicated by the possibilities a hometown star like Wiggins — who has already said he’d love to be a Raptor — could do for Toronto’s NBA franchise.

Sports luminaries like Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen, Luol Deng, Tom Thibodeaux, Danny Ainge, Grant Hill and Ndamukong Suh were on hand at the United Center, the House that Michael Jordan built, to see Wiggins and all the other young talents.

No wonder Wiggins got a new hairdo for the occasion. Right down to the wood.

So much has been said about the 18-year-old Wiggins from Thornhill, Ont., he of the 6-foot-8 frame, seven-foot wingspan and 44-inch vertical jump.

The hype machine behind Wiggins has been in over-drive for months, creating as much jealousy as excitement.

But understand this; there are many waiting for Wiggins to fail, maybe, given the intense passions that U.S. college basketball creates, as many as those who want him to succeed and be the next LeBron, the next Kobe.

With March Madness still five months away, we’re just at the start of a long conversation about who is the best player in U.S. college basketball. Just the fact that Wiggins is part of that conversation after Toronto-born Anthony Bennett went first in the NBA draft last summer tells you something may really be cooking on the Canadian basketball scene.

Compared to both the 225-pound Parker and the beast-like Randle, Wiggins is much thinner and much less physical a player. But he seems to like making his living in the lane more than outside where his mid-range jumper is still in development.

Wiggins, only the second freshman in NCAA history ever named a pre-season All-American, scored six points in first 10 minutes of the first half, but picked up two fouls and sat the rest of the half. He scored the first basket of the second half and began to make an impact at both ends of the court.

With 7:20 to play he picked up his fourth foul and was taken out, only to return two minutes later. With the game clock running down, he delivered those two key plays — the step-back jumper and the dunk — to ice the game.

Both Parker and Randle had bigger scoring nights. But Wiggins’s team won, and he was there with big plays at the key moments.

Can’t imagine a single NBA scout left disappointed. In fact, Wiggins probably did a lot to answer his critics, particularly those who wonder if he works hard enough, if he’s tough enough, if he cares enough to put a pro franchise on his slender shoulders and carry it.

It was a thoroughly promising night for Wiggins, and for Canadian basketball.

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